Alcoa, Yum Kick Off Q3 Earnings — Tuesday’s IP Market Recap

by Alyssa Oursler | October 9, 2012 5:18 pm

[1]Alcoa (NYSE:AA[2]) kicked off the official earnings season with a beat after the bell Tuesday, sending shares higher in after-hours trading. The company also held strong to its forecast for doubling aluminum demand between 2010 and 2020, though AA shares only crawled slightly higher in early after-market trading.

Earnings and revenue both grew year-over-year for Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM[3]) as well. The company beat EPS estimates by 2 cents and raised its full-year earnings guidance, sending YUM up 4% after hours.

U.S. stocks fell during normal trading hours, though, as investors braced themselves for the start of what is still expected to be a gloomy quarter overall. The IMF also recently warned[4] that the global slowdown is worsening. The news came on the heels of similarly glum warnings from economic bellwethers including Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT[5]) and FedEx (NYSE:FDX[6]).

For the day, the Nasdaq was sent 1.5% in the red to 3,065.02, the S&P dropped just under 1% to 1,441.49 and the Dow slid 0.9% to 13,473.99.

Tech stocks in particular fueled the markets’ downward movement on Tuesday — especially for the Nasdaq. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL[7]) for one, entered correction territory, trading down 10% from its all-time high and receiving a rating of “neutral” from Nomura. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC[8]) also reached a 52-week low with a loss of 2.7% on the day thanks to two negative analyst calls.

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX[15]) shares continued their wild ride[16] as well, dropping nearly 9% after an analyst cut the video streaming company’s stock to “underperform” from “buy.” The fall erased the company’s double-digit Monday gains.

RadioShack (NYSE:RSH[17]) was able to shake the downward trend by soaring more than 12% after an Bank of America (NYSE:BAC[18]) Merrill Lynch analyst upgraded the stock to “buy” from “underperform.”[19]

In gaming news, Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU[20]) plummeted just under 20% even after announcing a partnership with Probability PLC, a gambling operator based in the U.K. The company has been suffering collateral damage from the struggles of rival[21] Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA[22]).